Continuous Change Community

Best Remote Working

Tools and Techniques

Melanie Franklin and Gillian Perry

September 2021

After 18 months of remote working the group felt it was time to reflect on our experiences of
remote working to identify which tools had worked the best and what techniques had helped us to
work at a distance. We also wanted to consider what that means for the future of working, away
from an office location especially in a hybrid scenario where everyone is not working from a single
location.

It’s been a strange and at times challenging 18 months where most of us have become proficient in
the use of Teams and Zoom which appear to be the industry leading tools, but they are not the only
tools in the market and sit alongside a multitude of support packages to replicate flip charts, post it
notes and survey tools. There is also a growing market for the use of virtual workspace where your
onscreen video is replaced with an avatar. So, we expect the ways of working to continue to change
over the coming years.

At the session on 15th September the group wanted to explore what they have learnt and consider
how they want to change ways of working, what would they stop doing and what new routines they
should start.

1. Back-to-back meetings – the first stop was to remove the back-to-back meetings habit that
many have fallen into. Not helped by tools that propose 1-hour meetings starting on the
hour. Many reported their organisations has trialled different techniques which include 25
minute or 50-minute meetings rather than 30-minute or 1-hour meetings. Allowing
participants time to grab a coffee between calls. However, this is not enough time to allow
people to produce write ups or work time between calls and could still be impacting on
performance.
2. Camera on or Off – Whilst it seems a simple decision it isn’t. Firstly, the individual decision
may be related to the environment where you are holding your call or the simple fact that
the internet bandwidth isn’t available to you. However, how others on the call perceive the
camera being turned off has become a significant discussion point and some may surmise
that a camera off means you do not have 100% concentration on the call. In the UK this has
been exacerbated by a television advertisement suggesting that people must turn their
camera off or choose someone else’s background, until they have a new kitchen fitted (For
those who are not in the UK a ploy to sell kitchens). The question arose that people may
feel a greater level of psychological safety with the camera off. Whilst as a participant you
are thinking about whether you want the camera on or off, we are giving little or no thought
to the other people on the call. Image how you would feel if you found out a colleague had
hearing difficulties and were in part relying on being able to read your lips.
 3. No meeting Fridays or the golden hour where some company cultures are developing
towards key times when people are not expected to be on calls. However, what does this
mean if the only free time in someone’s calendar is in the “no Calls” time of the day.
4. Time Management skills – perhaps now is a time to focus on time management skills and
developing new techniques to manage your time effectively. There was a significant
concern that some people may feel they are unable to say no to a call which leads to burn
out. Therefore, a time management course including the skill to say no to the demands of
others becomes an essential skill for today’s employees.
5. Dress Code – Is there a new dress code. Some people felt uncomfortable when others
joined the calls in casual clothing. Of course, in the remote working day and age we only
must think about our attire above the waist. Whilst some people feel its important to wear
a suit, others are dressing for a day out at the beach. Perhaps its time to rethink company
norms. This will become especially true when we emerge in the new hybrid world.
6. Texting others while on a call – is it acceptable to text allies on a call to lobby for support or
should that discussion be in the open discussion and we should be willing to call out poor
behaviours and ensure everyone get the airtime to put forward our points. While some text
messaging is okay, it may in other circumstances impact on the team cohesiveness.

Looking to the future what does this level of change mean for companies. There was speculation
that companies are fearful of broadcasting that there is now a return to the office as they could be
bombarded with concerns over personal safety through to resignations from employees looking to
retain a level of remote working. However, the lack of any information is also leading to job moves
from those who want to get back to the office. For some, this uncertainty is unsettling whilst others
are prepared to be vocal and if necessary, moved to a different employer. Maybe in some cases it’s
a quiet acceptance that at some point they will return to the office.

Many viewed 2021 to be the year of the great resignation where employers who fail to offer options
for employees may find that they are faced with a mass resignation. Nationwide a UK Building
Society has openly said to its employees that they will have a “work where you” like policy. Whereas
Apple was quoted as suggesting that they will have an in the office Tuesday and Thursday for all
employees. However, many have yet to make any concrete announcements on policy adopting a
wait and see approach, with the fear that they cannot satisfy everyone. The group acknowledged
that today is not the time to be a HR professional managing multiple demands from employees
coupled with poor decision making from leaders.

Maybe 2022 will be a great time to call out the company values rather than to lose employees by
adopting rigid policies. We have all realised how much time we spent travelling for work and many
don’t want to repeat their previous commuting regimes. Some individuals have chosen to make the
move from city living to a more rural lifestyle.

Given we accept remote working is here to stay, the group looked at some emerging technology
solutions to the remote working world. We looked at Gather, Facebook Hub, Qube, Microsoft mesh
and hub from Mozilla. Whilst there was the question that whilst we are coping with the remote
working did, we really need to add a virtual world to our lives. As we navigated around the Mozilla
hub several challenges arose:

• Are we getting to fascinated with the technology and fail to hear the key discussion points
the organisation wanted to discuss?
 • Concerns that the level of bandwidth the avatars take up could that impact on your
experience especially if you are already dealing with poor quality of broadband in your
current location?
• New software solutions may also come up with security questions from the company’s IT
departments. There may be a wider concern of using anything on a Facebook platform.
• Finally, there was a debate about the inclusiveness of the software. All the avatars were
able to walk and the rooms in the hub had stairs to climb. Whilst this isn’t an issue in the
virtual world there was a concern that it did not reflect reality. Diversity and inclusion
remain a hot topic form many organisations.

We acknowledge that this change is going to continue with many companies looking at how to
support a more digitised workplace in the future. As these products start to launch and the future
work force will be significantly more tech savvy, we can see the way we work, continuing to
transform. With our existing people moving to the new technology enabled, hybrid world what
should their development plans contain. The teams came up with the following suggestions:

• Coaching and support for a greater level of tolerance or change and different ways of
working
• Routine training in the use of the software with an acceptance that new employees may be
proficient in a different set of tools and will need guidance on new tools and ways of
working.
• Ability to be curious and try out new ways of working
• Job descriptions should cover the need to develop yourself in new ways of working and be
open to try new things.
• Building confidence in presenting online
• Good induction training as people join a new organisations and don’t assume they are used
the toolset you use or in the way you use it.
• Develop a no blame culture
• Ensure people are kept up to date with software changes as they happen to make the best
use if the tools you have.
• A refresh on inclusion and diversity to help people think about how they create an inclusive
workspace in a virtual world.

Conclusion
As with all emergent change, our current working practices have evolved from the needs of the
initial crisis to a familiar routine, even if this routine is not working for us.
As change professionals it is time to explicitly describe our current state so we have a clear
baseline. We can then challenge if we want to go with things as they are or fix the problems we
underlined at the start of the session.
It is difficult to move forward if we do not first state where we are right now – so this is the
moment to do that and make sure everyone recognises all the different approaches that are in
existence in our organisations and help to devise an agreed set of standards that do not
discriminate, and that are fit for the type of work our organisations do.

Articles
https://www.ft.com/content/870c843d-adee-4cbc-9f81-4f758aa7957d

https://www.ft.com/content/86200fd7-6f73-47ae-a84a-1b824c57636d